


The Other Man

by storiesfortravellers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Badass, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Protectiveness, Rescue, Torture, Violence, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-15
Updated: 2014-06-15
Packaged: 2018-02-04 18:22:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1788724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesfortravellers/pseuds/storiesfortravellers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post Captain America:The Winter Soldier, Steve is kidnapped and tortured. When Bucky finds out, he turns into a vicious badass who tracks down Steve and kills his torturers. </p><p>After, Bucky comforts Steve and is very protective, not wanting to let anyone else go near Steve or touch him. </p><p>With Natasha, Clint, and Sam, and mentions of Natasha's friendship with Fury and Clint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Man

The video showed Steve bound to the concrete chair, barely conscious, eyes swollen from damage. Occasionally one of the others would come into frame – never their faces, just an arm or a leg. 

They took baseball bats to him, then electric cattle prods. They shot sharp long darts at various parts of his uniform. 

There was laughter.

Occasionally, a barely awake Steve could be seen struggling against the restraints. He couldn’t escape.

The video was untraceable, and it came with no demands.

It didn’t take much to figure out that it was HYDRA. This wasn’t a hostage situation. This was flat out revenge for what Steve did. They were planning to torture him to death slowly and let SHIELD watch.

SHIELD wasn’t much these days, but what there was had a mission. Find Captain America. All available agents were sent to dig up leads, shake down informants.

Before they left, Natasha asked Coulson if they should inform the Winter Soldier. Barnes had been sitting in a SHIELD facility – a health facility that happened to be equipped to hold superpowered people prisoner – since Steve had tracked him down. Barnes had voluntarily turned himself in. At the time, Steve had objected to the idea that Bucky had to undergo months of evaluation, but Barnes had said that it was understandable, and contented himself to read books about all the time he had missed and attend all the mandatory tests and therapy sessions SHIELD wanted. He seemed to want to prove to SHIELD that he could be trusted. He hadn’t done anything in custody that would suggest he was still under HYDRA orders, but there was a cold blankness to his expression that made everyone (but Steve) wonder if he should really be there. And since he wasn’t much of a talker – hardly speaking to anyone other than Steve – nobody really knew how much he remembered or even who he thought he really was.

Steve visited Barnes every day when he didn’t have to leave town for a mission; Barnes would surely have noticed that Steve had missed his scheduled return date. But Coulson didn’t think that it would be a good idea to show the recovering superpowered assassin something that could cause an emotional meltdown. “Steve would want us to take the best care possible of Sergeant Barnes,” Coulson said.

As Natasha and Clint got ready to leave to track down some sources, Natasha said, “Do you remember when you went missing?”

Clint did. He had been taken by a group of arms dealers, on a mission so secret only Hill and Fury knew about it. It was just a couple months after Natasha became a probationary SHIELD agent.

Clint had thought he was a goner. But a day in (a very unpleasant day), Fury had shown up personally to drag his ass back. Natasha was with him. Fury had trusted her enough to tell her, and her skills had been vital to finding him, and after seeing her in the field, willing to do anything to get Clint back, Fury really started trusting her. And it was mutual, Clint knew; Natasha was still wary of SHIELD, and it meant a lot that Fury went against common wisdom and brought her in rather than keep her in the dark about the person closest to her. Fury and Natasha had been something like friends ever since (Clint wasn’t entirely certain that Fury had ‘friends’ in the conventional sense).

“He has no reason to trust us if we keep something like this from him,” Natasha said, referring again to the Winter Soldier.

“He does probably know about HYDRA bases that we don’t. I mean, they say he gave up info during the debriefs, but maybe he held back something,” Clint agreed.

Sam knocked on the open door and walked over to them then. “Hey, Coulson says to join you guys.”

“Fine. We have to do one thing quick before we leave,” Natasha said. “Be right back.”

“You’re telling Bucky, right?” Sam said.

They paused.

Sam added, “Because anyone with sense knows that if we keep this from him, payback is going to be hell. Besides, he’s close to Steve, and he deserves to know.”

They nodded.

\--

They explained the situation to Bucky, standing at a safe distance from the window of his cell. They didn’t go into the details of the torture, but they explained that they were planning to track him down and rescue him. 

Bucky’s gaze grew more intense, but his facial expression didn’t change otherwise.

They got a phone call then, from Coulson.

“Caught,” Clint said, grimacing.

They put Coulson on speaker, who apparently had been informed where the three of them were. He read them the riot act for about a minute, when Clint suddenly said, “Hey, Barnes is gone.”

They ran into the cell and saw a large hole where the ceiling lights used to be.

“Oh, crap,” Clint said. 

“Yeah, let’s say I told Barnes,” Sam said, “Since I’m not technically SHIELD and can’t get in that much trouble.”

“We don’t hide behind our colleagues,” Natasha said.

“But that’s a sweet offer,” Clint added. “Besides, Coulson will want us to focus on finding Steve. He’ll tear us a new one about Barnes later.”

“We’d better go inform Coulson what happened,” Natasha said, and before leaving, they all stared one more time at the hole in the reinforced metal ceiling. None of the said aloud what they were all thinking: they had completely fucked up.

Because if anything were going to turn Barnes back into the Soldier, this was it. If they managed to ever find him again, which was a longshot, they might not find the same man. 

\--

Hours passed, and nobody at SHIELD had been able to find anything. Nobody had gotten sleep, but they weren’t considering giving up either. 

It was just before dawn when Natasha received a text message. “Steve is here. Trace this phone.”

“It could be a HYDRA trap,” Sam said hesitantly.

“No,” Natasha said. Her instincts screamed: “It’s Bucky.” 

She didn’t usually call him Bucky.

They contacted Coulson, who dispatched support teams, and the three of them piled into Natasha’s car and sped to the location as fast as they could. On the way, they looked at satellite images of the facility and devised their best entrance strategy; they would likely get there before the other teams, and they weren’t about to wait.

When they arrived, though, half the building was already collapsed. Most of the guards were lying on the ground, unconscious or dead, but there were a few that were running away from the building as fast as they could. 

They ran into the front and met no resistance. They heard noises from the upper floors, so they headed up the stairs, where they passed by several HYDRA agents who didn’t even bother to try to stop them. One even said, “I surrender, just don’t let him have me!” Clint punched him unconscious and they kept running up. 

Finally, they reached the room that appeared to be the center of action.

The Winter Soldier was there. He had ripped off the restraints and was holding Steve up in his arms, hugging his chest to keep him upright. Steve’s eyes were closed.

“He’s alive,” the Soldier said, a smear of blood down the side of his mouth. They all stared.

Surrounding them were bodies lying on the floor, all of them dispatched in horrifying ways. Apparently, the Soldier had arrived in the middle of another torture session. 

There was blood everywhere. Clint and Sam had straighten their faces to avoid seeming nauseous.

“Let’s get him home,” Natasha said to the Soldier, carefully, calmly, as if asking if he would like a coffee. Her gun was drawn in case of HYDRA resistance, but she wasn’t sure yet if she’d have to use it. The Soldier might get confused and remember Steve as an enemy.

“Nobody touches him but me,” the Soldier said. His eyes were blank, dark. Natasha thought then that it might be an even bigger problem if the Soldier decided that they were a threat to Steve.

“Helicopter landing in one minute,” Clint said, basing it on the approaching sound.

The Soldier hoisted Steve up and carried him then, walking past them as if they weren’t there. The rest of them followed, and none of them holstered their weapons.

Clint and Sam planned to stay and round up the HYDRA agents who were fleeing; they didn’t want to slow down the helicopter with their weight anyway. When the others got into the helicopter, Natasha sat on one side and Barnes pulled Steve up on the other, his large body sprawled out at odd angles. 

As they lifted off, Steve opened his swollen eyes just slightly. “Buck,” he whispered, voice rasped.

“You’re gonna be fine, punk,” Barnes said, voice and expression still blank.

“Don’t go, Bucky. Don’t leave again,” Steve whispered. He didn’t seem to have any idea what was going on.

“It’s okay, Steve.”

“It took so long to find you, Buck,” Steve continued, voice weak, almost whimpering, “So long. It took so long, Buck.”

Barnes ran a hand onto Steve’s chest and rubbed it gently. “Shh. I’m not going anywhere, Steve. It’s going to be okay. I won’t go anywhere.”

Steve seemed to calm at this and settled in, leaning his head to rest on Bucky’s thigh. Bucky ran his hand through Steve’s hair, occasionally whispering, “Shh, it’s okay.”

Natasha watched them closely.

Steve eventually fell asleep as Bucky held him.

As they rode back to HQ, they sat quietly. Finally Barnes glanced at Natasha. “I remember.”

“Being Bucky Barnes?”

“That too. I remember what I did to you,” Barnes said to her. He was watching her carefully, his eyes blank again.

“Okay.”

“I don’t think sorry is going to cover it.”

Natasha relaxed, slightly. “Let’s not dwell on it. It’s good to have you on our side.” _Instead of theirs._ Natasha refused to let the man see how much he had terrified her for all those years. And as much as she hated to admit it, it was Bucky Barnes who would stop at nothing to bring Steve home, but it was the Winter Soldier who made it possible.

“I don’t think your colleagues will be so tolerant of my methods. I don’t think Steve will either, once he finds out.”

“He’ll understand.”

Bucky was silent for a while then.

Natasha said then, as they started their landing, “I know what it’s like. To be more than one person.” 

Bucky smirked, dark, skeptical. “Yeah, how’s that going for you?”

“Better than it used to.”

Bucky stared at her for a good moment, then swallowed. “Good to know.”

\--

When they landed at HQ, Barnes carried Steve to medical. The nursing staff rushed to help but Natasha gave them a look that said it was safer to leave Barnes and Steve undisturbed. 

When they arrived, Coulson, Natasha, and the medical team watched as Bucky gently lay Steve on the bed. He seemed to whisper something to Steve, who appeared to whisper back.

A doctor approached to do the evaluation, but Barnes told her to stop. “Nobody touches Steve but me.”

“We have to check him,” she replied, not backing down. Natasha and Coulson casually let their hands rest on their weapons, just in case. Barnes wasn’t being his usual self, his odd combination of hollow and affable.

Barnes answered, “I have field medical training. Walk me through. You can look, but nobody touches him but me.”

The doctor sighed, but seeing that she wasn’t going to win the argument, she mumbled something about only allowing this since the serum had likely protected Steve from lasting damage, and started giving Barnes instructions for giving Steve the checkup. Steve submitted passively to his touch. Bucky checked his pupils and vision, and Steve was moving slowly, but seemed conscious if very groggy and in a lot of pain. He checked for broken ribs (yes), concussion (yes), and nerve injuries (no), and the doctor concluded that with Steve’s healing abilities, he would be all right in a week. 

After, Barnes stood by Steve’s side, his right hand on Steve’s shoulder. 

“I guess telling Barnes wasn’t the worst idea,” Coulson said to Natasha.

She sighed. “Yeah, you’ll be getting a report about the casualties.”

“Civilians?” Coulson said nervously.

“No. Some very impressive and painful killing of HYDRA agents.”

“Was it a loss of control? Do you think that Barnes should be kept out of public life indefinitely?”

Natasha paused. “I don’t know. But he didn’t do anything for Steve that I wouldn’t do for Clint. Or for you or Fury.”

He looked at her, forehead furrowed, for a moment, then nodded.

They continued to watch Bucky, standing over Steve like a guard, like the two of them could never leave each other’s side. 

\--

In a few hours, after some rest and food, Steve was able to sit up and see visitors.

“You’re faking being hurt to get time off, right?” Clint teased, and Natasha elbowed him. 

Sam brought him his tablet so he could do some reading while in medical, and Tony had flown in when he heard what happened, bringing Bruce along too (Natasha made a mental note that Tony apparently had ways of tracking Banner that SHIELD didn’t). Tony had brought red, white, and blue balloons, and Pepper had sent boxes of delicious snacks.

Coulson visited, of course, and so did Agent Thirteen, Hill, and Triplett. Others wanted to, but Coulson capped the limit to personal friends. Barnes just sat in the corner silently the whole time, expressionless. Natasha took it as a good sign that he didn’t seem threatened by Steve’s visitors.

When the doctor finally kicked them out, they said their good byes, but Barnes stayed put. 

“It’s okay, Buck, get some sleep. I’m okay now,” Steve said, smiling at him like he was the biggest hero in the world. Natasha wondered for a moment what it would have been like to know them when they were younger, before a century of frozen numbness crept into their bodies and minds, when Steve was just a kid looking up to his best friend.

Barnes stood up and walked out, nodding at Steve as he left.

Natasha was about to walk out too, when Steve said her name.

“Natasha. Thank you.”

“It was Barnes who saved you.”

“He told me that you weren’t supposed to tell him what happened to me. But you did.”

She hesitated, uncomfortable. “It seemed appropriate.”

“I know it couldn’t have been easy for you. To think of him as….”

“As Bucky Barnes.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know he was going to escape. I see now that was a ridiculous assumption.”

“Never underestimate Bucky’s loyalty to his friends,” Steve said with a wide smile. His face was already mostly healed.

“I noticed. He wouldn’t let anyone touch you when you first got here.”

“I asked him to do that.”

“What?” Natasha said.

“I was pretty out of it, back there. They… they got me pretty good,” Steve said, voice cracking a little. “When Bucky pried off the restraints, I didn’t even understand what was happening. I… I punched him. I thought it was one of the HYDRA agents and it was my chance to escape. I hit him hard.”

“He seems fine.”

“But if he were an ordinary person, I could have killed him. I made him promise that nobody would touch me but him until I … got back to my normal self.”

“Oh.” Natasha wondered for a second why Barnes didn’t just explain that, but then decided that if she were in his position, she wouldn’t either.

“I… I’ve never … feared my strength before,” Steve said to her, softly. He looked ashamed. “I’ve always had control.”

“Don’t be embarrassed to be human, Steve. It’ll make the rest of us feel insulted,” she said with a reassuring smile.

He smiled back. “Okay. Look, I know you’re all still scared of Bucky. But….”

“I think he’s going to be okay. I think… he wants to be okay. That’s a big thing.”

Steve smiled again at her, softer, grabbing her hand lightly. “Thank you. For giving him a chance. After what he did to you.”

“I haven’t decided to give him a chance yet.”

“I think you have. I've seen how you act with someone when you're not going to give them a chance. It's much scarier than this.”

She rolled her eyes but gave him a smile. “Get some rest, Steve.”

“I will.”

“I’m pretty sure Barnes is hiding somewhere nearby so he can sneak back in and spend the night in that chair,” she added.

“He definitely is,” Steve said, with a pleased grin.

“Talking about people behind their back is rude,” a voice said in the doorway. They looked over at Bucky.

Steve answered, “The nurses want to see an empty room so I can rest. And these are SHIELD-trained nurses, so you might not be able to charm your way into their good graces.”

“I’m pretty sure I can hide my presence from a bunch of people who aren’t even operatives,” Bucky said.

“No doubt,” Natasha said. “You boys have fun together,” she said, walking toward the exit.

“Maybe when Steve feels a little better,” Bucky answered with a smirk.

Natasha watched as Steve turned bright red. “You’re a jackass, Buck,” he mumbled, no sharpness in his voice.

“You love it,” Bucky said, plopping down into the chair and dragging it next to the bed. His face was still expressionless, but his voice had a slight jump to it, livelier somehow.

Natasha smiled at Steve and waved her good bye. She thought about how close they were to losing Steve for good, then looked back at the two men, talking like nothing had happened, smiling even. Maybe they were choosing to forget everything that happened, to forget that the road ahead was going to be anything but easy, for either of them. 

That was okay with her. They deserved a day to remember only the good times. She was happy that they finally could.

**Author's Note:**

> For this prompt at avengerkink:
> 
>  
> 
> _Steve gets kidnapped on a mission and all leads stop in a dead end. The Avengers can't find him, SHIELD can't find him, it's like he's disappeared into thin air. Then they're forced to tell Bucky and all hell breaks loose. Because no one, absolutely NO ONE, touches Steve as long as Bucky has a say in it. When he finally does find him, he makes sure the would-be kidnappers are begging for death by the time he's done with them for taking Steve away._
> 
>  
> 
> _Bonus: When Bucky finds out that Steve is missing, he doesn't say anything; he just turns and walks out of the room. All attempts to contact him are futile and both SHIELD and the Avengers (maybe with the exception of Natasha) are a bit afraid to approach him because a pissed off Winter Soldier is scarier than the Hulk on a rage bender._
> 
>  
> 
> _Bonus: Bucky carries Steve away from wherever he's being held and refuses to let anyone, SHIELD, Avengers, or otherwise, come near him._
> 
>  
> 
> _Feel free to go nuts, anons! I just want some scary as hell, protective!ex-Winter Soldier Bucky swooping in like a BAMF and rescuing Steve._


End file.
